Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation
WWFOR recently signed the “Joint Interfaith Statement to the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” Click here to read the statement.
Click here to see our annual fundraising letter, emailed 11/17/23. Thank you for considering a donation!
Our annual Fall Retreat “The Human Right to a Livable and Just World.” was held by Zoom Saturday November 11, 2023, 9 am – 12:30 pm. Click here for more info. We hope to have recordings of the presentations available online soon.
We thank Nadine Hoover for her presentation “Decolonizing Friends Peace Teams, an Actively Anti-Racist Faith Community” on Oct. 15, 2023. If you missed it or would like to see it again, click here.
We thank Veterans for Peace for their Sept 17, 2023, presentation on Climate and Militarism. Click here for a brief report and resources.
The latest issue of our newsletter the Pacific Call is now available. Click here to go to our newsletter page with more recent articles as well as older ones or click here to go to the pdf version of the September 2023 issue.
Twenty-two Youth Aged 14 to 23 have begun their Mike Yarrow Peace Fellowships for the 2023-2024 contingent!
The new MYPF fellows had Intensive Training via Zoom July 10-14, 2023, and they are now working on year-long projects.
Meet the 2023 MYPF
We thank the Olympia FOR chapter for supporting the Mike Yarrow Peace Fellows Youth Activist Program by organizing a live concert and we thank the performers: folksingers, storytellers, and activists Tom Rawson and Ellen van der Hoeven who gave everyone a great time on May 19. 2023.
SELECT RECORDINGS are now available from our May 6, 2023, Spring Assembly at https://wwfor.org/spring-assembly-2023/. Our keynoter was Helena Cobban, two local activists led workshops, and we heard from youth activists in our Mike Yarrow Peace Fellowship program. Music was provided by Tom Rawson.
The March 2023 issue (version 2, updated) of our quarterly newsletter, Pacific Call, is now available. Click here for the pdf version to read online or download. Click here for the newsletter page with many individual articles and links to earlier issues.
2022 FALL RETREAT!
Dozens of people joined WWFOR on Saturday, Nov 19, 2022. Our theme was “Intergenerational Voices for Economic Justice and Peace.” More info about our presenters and their topics is at our Fall Retreat page. Also, see that page for links to video recordings from our wonderful event!
SPRING ASSEMBLY 2022 was on SATURDAY APRIL 30. The theme was “Defending and Extending Democracy Using Nonviolence.” A description of the event and resource list relating to the presentations is available here.
An enthusiastic crowd came together on Dec 12, 2021, in a fundraising concert organized by our Tacoma Chapter. Folksinger Tom Rawson returned to help raise much needed funds for our Afghan Friends. Click here to read all about it.
Many thanks to Tom and his partner Ellen for a great time, with meaningful songs and some that were lighthearted fun. Over the years, Tom has generously offered his singing and song-leading for WWFOR and several of our chapters, as well as being the song leader at our Northwest regional conferences at Seabeck. See https://www.tomrawson.com/ for more about Tom and his music.
2021 WWFOR Fall Retreat was held on Nov. 13.
Bridging Our Differences. Civility First …. So We Can Work Together
Click here to see what happened there.
WWFOR & BRAVER ANGELS PRESENTED A DEPOLARIZING WITHIN WORKSHOP Online Saturday July 17, 2021, on Zoom. This free Workshop was designed to foster skills to lessen the effects of polarization when encountered in political conversations. Click here to read a report about this workshop
Working for Racial Justice
Fellowship of Reconciliation has a long history of working for racial justice. Many civil rights activists were (or still are) members of FOR including Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., and James Lawson. Locally we have worked for police accountability, economic justice, health care for all, and resolved to be anti-racism activists.
We are happy to see a racial justice awakening, especially among white people who have been in denial. We have never been in a “post-racial” society. We are grateful to the Black Lives Matter activists who are leading the way to a more just country. Let’s acknowledge our country’s shameful past and work to make a difference here and now! Several members of WWFOR’s Regional Council (our decision making body) have gotten together to work on racial justice; this group has compiled some useful resources. Click below for resources.
Resources for Racial Justice
Seeking to replace war, racism, and economic injustice with nonviolence, equality, peace and justice.
Since 1915, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) has carried on programs and educational projects concerning domestic and international peace and justice, nonviolent alternatives to conflict, and the rights of conscience.